Addiction expert quits

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Dr. Lindy Lee says she couldn’t keep ‘plugging the holes’ to keep up with the growing demand for opiate addiction services and became frustrated by the lack of adequate support from health officials.

One of Manitoba's top addiction experts has resigned after she expressed concern inadequate resources make it impossible to treat the ballooning number of patients hooked on opiates such as OxyContin.

Dr. Lindy Lee handed in her resignation as director of the Health Sciences Centre addiction unit last month and will leave her position at the end of August.

Lee said she couldn't keep "plugging the holes" to keep up with the growing demand for opiate addiction services and became frustrated by the lack of adequate support from health officials. She said she has been bombarded by requests to assess more opiate addicts who are turning up in other hospital wards -- including emergency, surgery and obstetrics -- and directly from the community in desperate need of help.

Lee said the problem has "exploded" to the point where it's impossible to see patients within two weeks and some addicts have died before receiving a basic assessment. She said she's asked multiple times for resources to support a community-based detox and assessment program for opiate addicts, but to no avail.

"Things weren't going to change if I just continued to plug the holes," Lee said. "The number of patients I was seeing kept going up and up. I don't think it's peaked in Winnipeg and the problem in rural Manitoba is increasing."

Frontline experts say Lee's resignation is a huge blow to the hospital and other local addiction treatment services. The hospital ward is the only medical detox unit in the city and frequently helps patients detox before they enter residential rehabilitation programs. Lee also played an integral role in stabilizing opiate addicts who are forced to wait between six and 12 months to get in for methadone treatment.

Her looming departure comes at a time when more opiate-addicted patients need treatment and a growing number of addicts are dying before they receive help.

"It's going to (have) a huge impact and not a positive one, that's for sure," said Laurie Magee, director of Addictions Foundation of Manitoba's methadone-intervention program. "I think the hospital is going to suffer a big loss."

Winnipeg Regional Health Authority spokeswoman Heidi Graham said the addiction unit will not close in Lee's absence, and that officials are actively looking for a replacement.

Healthy Living Minister Jim Rondeau commended Lee's work, but said the province is focusing on long-term solutions to opiate abuse. By restricting opiate prescriptions and training more doctors to prescribe methadone, the demand for treatment services will eventually decline, Rondeau said.

"It would be nice to have unlimited resources and it would be nice to have a Band-Aid. However, what we did is we looked at a long-term fix that would solve the system over a long period of time," he said.

The recent surge in opiate abuse prompted the Manitoba government to restrict the number of OxyContin prescriptions in an effort to reduce the supply of opiates sold on city streets, and in turn, the demand for methadone treatment services.

But the move hasn't stifled the demand for treatment and the rise in abuse has driven up the wait list. The number of people waiting for treatment jumped to 180 people from 150 in the last three months, raising concerns it could take longer than six to 12 months for someone to get help.

Lee said the opiate problem didn't exist in Winnipeg when she first took over the addiction unit in 2003. Now, she is struggling to keep up with the demand and said she's repeatedly asked health officials for help. Lee said she decided to resign since she could no longer physically or emotionally handle making patients wait.

She plans to continue her work with opiate-addicted patients in community-based methadone programs.

"(It) has exploded on us with no organized resources to deal with it," Lee said. "I was trying to see people within two weeks, but that has become impossible now."

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 26, 2010 A3